Cousin Lilly's 1931 Shower, Marriage, and Census Entry

My father's paternal first cousin, Lilly Berk (1906-1957) was married to Joseph Goldberg (1903-1981) in Montreal on Sunday, June 7, 1931, as the Depression took hold in Canada. 

Lilly's friends threw her a fun bridal shower that was covered in the Canadian Jewish Chronicle newspaper on March 27, 1931. I found this out by researching her name (with spelling variations) using the OldNews.com feature of MyHeritage. The list of attendees included her sister and many friends who came to play bridge and shower Lilly with gifts of linens. This same group of friends played bridge together regularly, as I could see by mentions in the newspaper's social column. Little tidbits like this bring ancestors to life for me!

What also caught my eye about Lilly's wedding date was the fact that it took place after the June 1, 1931 Census Day in Canada. As shown above, Lilly and her new husband, Joseph, are enumerated as married and seemingly landlord/landlady with others living in the same household. He is 28, she is 22. 

Um, it is possible but very unlikely that in that period, they would live together and call themselves married before the wedding, so I'm assuming the enumerator didn't reach their residence until June 8 at the earliest. Although the enumerator was supposed to indicate where he or she ended each day and put a date in right margin of the Census sheet, I haven't found any dates in this particular section. For now, my estimate is they were enumerated after June 8th ;)

Lilly died not too many months after celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary, mourned by her husband and two grown sons. Today I'm remembering this cousin on the 93d anniversary of her marriage.

Quebec Area Ancestors? Use the Drouin Collection!

Last night's local genealogy club program was all about researching ancestors in Quebec province. My Uncle Sidney Burk was born in Montreal and lived there for less than a year--that's the entire extent of my Quebec-area ancestry, or so I thought.

On the recommendation of the speaker, I clicked to the Drouin Collection of Quebec vital records to find Sidney's actual birth record. Here's the direct link to the Drouin Collection's gateway on Ancestry. I clicked on "Quebec Vital & Church Records," then typed "S. Berk," "1914," and "Montreal." In an instant, the search put somebody named "Samuel B. Berk" at the top of the results. 

Samuel B. Berk's 1914 birth record (Sidney Burk in New York)

Even though I'd never heard of Samuel Berk, I clicked anyway--and there was my uncle, with the name given to him at birth, as registered with Congregation Tifereth Israel in Montreal. Parents shown are Isaac Berk (changed to Burk in NY) and his wife, Hereitta Maller (really Henrietta Mahler). Isn't it lucky that maiden names are shown in these handwritten records!

Lily Berk marriage record from June 7, 1931

On Isaac Burk's border crossing record from 1915, he listed his brother as the nearest relative in Canada: Abraham Berk of 431 Mt. Royal Ave., Montreal.

AND there was a marriage entry for "Lily Berk" in the Drouin search results, so I clicked. As you can see here, she's the Montreal-born daughter of Abraham Berk and Annie Horovitz, marrying Polish-born Joseph Goldberg (Farber). Both bride and groom lived at 66 Bagg Ave. in Montreal in 1931, when they were married. This address is less than one mile away from Mt. Royal Ave.

More Drouin research is in my future!